Police separated two groups organizing outside of U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan's office in Raleigh today while they were protesting health care reform.
The protest originally was organized by the national liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org, which held protests at senators' offices across the country today. The protest of about 20 people was pushing for a public option in health care reform. The national group has been watching Hagan specifically.
Another group organized by NC Freedom, a conservative group, showed up to protest against MoveOn and the public option for health care.
The group's plan, according to its Web site, was to block out the health care protest. "We need to have number sufficient to encircle their entire group," the Web site says. After protesting at different ends of the sidewalk, the conservative group, which was larger and had more signs, surrounded the group from MoveOn.
Police said the two groups were blocking the courthouse's door, and moved them to different parts of the sidewalk outside of the courthouse. Officers said it was a judgment call to separate the two groups.
Correction: An earlier version of the post incorrectly said Hagan had not decided whether to support a public option. Hagan supports the public option proposed last week by the Senate health committee. That plan is known as the Community Health Insurance option.
More after the jump
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"They should allow us to interact," said Tom Jarenko of Fuquay, who was with the counter protest. "We are not even allowed to have an open dialogue. There are elderly people out here, who do you think is going to fight. This isn't the '70s."
But representatives from MoveOn said they were not concerned with the counter protest and only wanted to make their message heard.
"For us, it's not about us versus them," said Lonna Harkrader. "We want to help everybody without health care in the country. We all know people without health care."
Comments
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 15, 2009 - 6:01am — bnartistNice job with the racial profiling "patsygar" and using ethnicity as a weapon.
An articulate brown man couldn't possibly be a citizen? Let's just pull him over and check his ID. No "intimidation" involved, right? Just musing about his race and implying he might be a terrorist, right? If Barack Obama can't convince wingers about his origins, then every brown person in America better grab an inner tube and start paddling before the "show of hands" begins? A mob doesn't "plan" violence. Violence is implied by a group working itself into an irrational frenzy.
For the record, the maligned person is a registered voter. God Bless America.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 14, 2009 - 11:23pm — patsygarNo intimidation on the part of the conservatives - and certainly no violence planned, just verbal challenges to the position Moveon folks were taking. One wonders if the Moveon folks were volunteers or paid workers.
The Moveon leader was a 21 year old Pakistani student from UNC Chapel Hill ... A US citizen?? One wonders.
When the Moveon group in Greensboro was asked how many of them were US citizens, only one hand went up. Interesting!
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 10, 2009 - 1:39pm — JustWonderingParents should not take their kids to protest rallies, especially when there is a chance of confrontation between groups. It is just bad parenting in my opinion.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 10, 2009 - 4:10am — GiggleBoxYes.
Lovely bunch on both sides. What's with all the facial hair? Does a beard make one more predisposed to making a fool of yourself in public?
What I've learned from this meeting of the wing nuts is that any one Senator that can be protested by both sides at once has my vote.
Kay Hagan is a true moderate and represents the regular people (not pictured) well.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 10, 2009 - 2:36am — TheNextCaliforniaJustWondering:
Did you even bother to look at the pictures and educate yourself on who the "protestors" are? http://americanelephant.com/blog/north-carolina/we-surrounded-them-moveon-counter-protest/
They're moms, dads, kids and just normal folks. No violence, no malice.
Of course this won't get coverage in the press; the press only represents one side, no matter how many people are involved.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 10, 2009 - 2:24am — TheNextCaliforniaThe problem with the healthcare system is that is not affordable to some (though let's be honest that some of the uninsured CHOOSE not to pay for it but can afford it).
No rational person can justify that the US Taxpayer needs to be on the hook for upwards of 2 trillion dollars so that we can have affordable healthcare.
The government cannot be a regulator and a competitor in a market ... otherwise it becomes what we call a monopoly. A monopoly is supposed to be a bad thing here in the US, remember?
Find a way to make it affordable, don't punish the majority and take away their choice to choose their own healthcare options. A public option would do both of those things.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 9, 2009 - 11:48pm — greenswampIf you will look at the plan, it is not all about the public option. A lot of it concentrates on fostering a fair competition between insurance companies which is not there now. So many people just zone in on the public option when there is a whole lot more to the bill than that. If you want to throw all of your money at a non-competing insurance company, then go right ahead. Kind of like awarding a no-bid contract to me.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 9, 2009 - 11:15pm — mountainmangreenswamp, How can it be good for the goverment to compete with the private sector in health care or anything for that matter????? The government thinks they have a endless supply of money, yours and mine. The government already has plans in place to help people who are unable to help themselves. So who would it benefit, people who pay for insurance that would like to save that money to buy other stuff. Government run programs have no business in a free market.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 9, 2009 - 9:56pm — PercyKution (not verified)Well, when the po-po start breaking up protests, no matter who's protesting what, that just about does it. The end of a gun barrel is ALL that keeps the polipigs in office. That's why they don't want THE PEOPLE to have guns. Weird when the government is afraid of it's own citizens. Wonder why?
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 9, 2009 - 8:59pm — JustWonderingSurrounding them, huh? That makes it sound like an attempt by the conservative group to intimidate the liberal group, perhaps with an implied threat of violence.
Not many people were present in either group, so this is not getting much news attention, but it would be nice if officials were able to say whether the groups were behaving properly or whether there was intimidation.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 9, 2009 - 8:50pm — greenswampCall it what you want, but still it is a better business model than the failed Republican one. You must admit that the Republicans were a complete failure.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 9, 2009 - 8:39pm — ThoughtCrimes"public option" what a joke. Doom-a-crats just love that spin. just call it what it is. NAtion SocIalist health rationing.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 9, 2009 - 7:30pm — greenswampWhat I can't understand is why you would be so against the public option or some of the other proposals the Democrats are making such as creating more competition in the medical and insurance businesses. That is really what free markets and pure competition is all about. Read Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose". You are trying to protect a few insurance companies from competing. Do you hate Democrats so much that you would abandon your own prnciples? Truth is, Democrats are more pro-business.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 9, 2009 - 7:30pm — greenswampWhat I can't understand is why you would be so against the public option or some of the other proposals the Democrats are making such as creating more competition in the medical and insurance businesses. That is really what free markets and pure competition is all about. Read Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose". You are trying to protect a few insurance companies from competing. Do you hate Democrats so much that you would abandon your own prnciples? Truth is, Democrats are more pro-business.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 9, 2009 - 7:08pm — henryeThese Liberal groups think protests are their sole given right. ITs about time other people paying the tax bills to stand up and be heard, When you are paying the bills and the other side is not, They dont care about the cost. they think the country owes them a living.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 9, 2009 - 6:15pm — ejkaneGood thing we have a "Community Organizer" as President of the US and that we are finally going to get a heath care system that people need. Sorry, "patriots" you're waving the flag at the wrong issue. The country, along with North Carolina, elected President Barack Obama to get a national health care policy enacted. You can link President Obama's name with every negative association you can think of, but you lost the election. Tough muffins! So have fun sitting in your back room together trying to think up bad words to link with Obama while the rest of us pass a much needed improvement to our national health care policy.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 9, 2009 - 5:27pm — TheNextCaliforniaYou can read about the other side of this story here:
http://americanelephant.com/blog/north-carolina/we-surrounded-them-moveon-counter-protest/
Sounds like MoveOn.org was outnumbered 4 to 1, I'm not surprised. Please look at the pictures, those are moms, dads and kids.... they look quite peacefully protesting to me.
An exerpt from the link I added:
I’m not sure if MoveOn.org knew what happened. Their people were there, organized by “Community Organizers” such as ACORN and funded by MoveOn.org, George Soros and his ilk… yet they were quite literally surrounded by a grassroots group of ordinary citizens who got the call from a number of local patriots. If “We Surround Them” is the mantra of the grassroots uprising, then it certainly held true today.
There was some a little nastiness (mostly from MoveOn people), but mostly there was healthy debate. Clearly the counter–protesting patriots were more knowledgeable about the realities of ObamaCare, while the MoveOn crowd was either less well-read or just surprised by an informed, contrary view. Either way, things were going well until the cops stepped in and made the groups separate, stating we were blocking the sidewalk and building entrance. They pushed the MoveOn crowd to the street corner and our counter-protest back in the grass. Even though we couldn’t “surround them” anymore, we still made our opinions clear. Our group sang “God Bless America”, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”, and chanted loud enough against ObamaCare and socialized medicine for Kay Hagan’s staff to hear our every word. MoveOn? I’m not sure what they were doing.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 9, 2009 - 5:20pm — TheNextCaliforniakkiley: Interesting that you decided to put a label on the NCFreedom group (they call themselves patriots, you call them conservatives). Why did you not provide a label for MoveOn? We all know they're liberal (progressive democrats) but somehow you chose to label one group and not the other. Until the "journalists" can learn to be unbiased in their reporting, newspaper sales will continue to plunge.
It does not sound like there was any violence. I'm glad to hear that both sides were able to have their freedom of speech peacefully.
In recent years, only the liberals and progressives have protested ... the majority of us have been silent. I'm glad to hear that we have equal or greater representation.
Re: Police split up Hagan protest
July 9, 2009 - 3:32pm — BitterEXdemocratNow is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country!
JOIN the TYRANNY Response Team!
www.NCMilitia.org
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Periodically, the tree of Liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots...Thomas Jefferson...